My husband and I met in 1997 married two years later in Sept 1999, and are a combined family of 3 children who were 3,4 & 5 at the time we met. Since that time we knew that we needed to buy a home and start building equity. We saw what our family members were doing and wanted to be the same way. It was not until early 2002 that we were able to find something affordable and the loan made sense. We had to move almost an hour away from the big city of Sacramento and commute back in for our jobs. The only thing in Sacramento that fit our budgets was over 20 years old and needed more work than the loan or our pocket books could afford. My husband does outside sales and while out driving in Yuba City came upon a small sign posted to a telephone pole by one of the local builders. 1st phase now released it said. He called me immediately after making a phone call to the builder and said…. Are you ready to move??? After asking my questions and getting comfortable, said yes. We put $11K down on a $175K loan, purchased a 4/3 1723sq ft home on .08ac, and closed in Jan 03. 2years and 3 months later we sold for $349K and are now onto our next home. We took some equity out of our 1st home to begin with because we had a dream of owning land 5 ac or more. We found a piece and were ready to go but still not deep pockets and not really 100% sure but kept telling ourselves that the long term results would out weigh our odds. The equity we took out was to cover the 20% they want down on the land loan. We paid 3 mortgage payments for 6 months until we could make the move. We purchased a camping pull trailer, put the house up for sale (sold in 2 days at that time), secured a construction loan to build, and moved the 3 kids, 2 dogs, and cat, onto a vacant land lot and camped for 1 year while building our dream. We commuted together everyday to work to save gas and while he drove I was on the phone with subcontractors and scheduling for the next day. The laundry was put into plastic bags and we would have “Laundry Saturdays” at the laundry mat in town. There was a water hose hooked up to the neighbors, as well as a 220v power cord so we did not have to run the generator all the time. My husband is 6’4″ and it was extremely difficult for him to function is the small trailer. Then on top of that trying to have an adult personal life when your kids are sleeping right next to you. We both had to try and keep our professional careers and the clothes were hung with care all over the trailer on those exceptionally useful removeable hooks. We have been in our new home for almost a year now and love it. We are still ahead of the curve even though real estate has fallen by about 25% in our area. Our son will graduate high school in 2 years, daughter in 4 years, and other daughter in 5 years. We anticipate that at that time or before we will be ready to sell again and do what it says in the book. Invest back into Real estate, and buy one or two rentals, depending on the amount rec\’d from selling. We grew to love real estate so much that I went through school and became an agent. I have been growning my business for a year now and everyone questioned why would I make a move in a down market. I simply said I believe most agents never learned to really work over the last 5+ years and I was going to build my business by learning to do it while things were normal and not jump in like most did when it was booming and just fly by the seat of their pants. My husband is currently studying but will probably not make a move for a while considering he is and has been the back bone to me builing up my business. I LOVE Real Estate, did I say LOVE, I’m infatuated! Thanks David,for allowing me to find another tool! Your book is great and I still haven’t finished it yet. There are all sorts of underlined and highlighted parts I am going to share with my clients, family and co-workers.